| Title: |
Business Driven Application Modernization |
| Author: |
David Sprott |
| Publication Date: |
29 January 2010 |
| Report Type: |
Journal |
| Report Class: |
Best Practice |
| Abstract: |
A high proportion of application modernization work is technology driven, often carried out with narrow technical objectives for re-platforming or re-developing in a new language. There is a general desire to increase the level of business influence in modernizing applications, but what does this mean? In this article we introduce context and techniques for both analyzing requirements and particularly for managing the response to business needs in the application modernization process. We also introduce the concept of Agility Potential – a technique and measure to facilitate a rational conversation between business and IT managers on the subject of agility, as well as providing the basis for a system of metrics for management and control. |
| Backgrounder: |
Application Modernization (AM) is a priority for most enterprises. The complexity, inefficiency and inflexibility of most enterprise application portfolios is at last being recognized as an area of huge cost and business opportunity.
But what is AM? For many organizations it’s eliminating assembler code, reengineering COBOL to Java, server virtualization, or offshoring or best of breed package implementation or both. A common goal is short term cost reduction, eliminating resources wrestling with unwieldy legacy architectures. But while these are reasonable objectives they are probably inadequate. The results of a narrowly focused modernization approach are likely to be sub-optimal, because they focus on solving immediate, known problems rather than establishing a flexible, business relevant architecture that can more easily respond to tomorrow’s needs.
It’s useful to think of multiple dimensions to application modernization. As shown in Figure 1, these will frequently reflect a maturity model, with early efforts being largely technology oriented, progressing through the improvement of delivery process, architecture and finally methodical integration of IT and business modernization.
In this article we will introduce techniques for achieving the higher level of AM maturity – where modernization effort is business driven and prioritizes modernization efforts according to business needs and ensures that the resulting assets and architectures support the required business agility. Our approach is to integrate business capability planning and IT modernization using metrics that can drive the modernization architecture and process as well as providing a basis for governance of service delivery and ongoing management. |
| Report Size: |
11 pages |
| Report Access Type: |
 | Silver/Gold (Premium) |
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| Available for separate purchase |
Single copies of recent CBDI Journals may be purchased |
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